twice cursed mage 05 - claimed Read online

  “The more you fight it, Mac, the harder this will be on the both of us,” the old man said, shaking his head as he knelt down beside Jack and studied the vampire intently. “Warded bullets. Clever.”

  His eyes turned into solid pink gumballs as he waved his liver-spot covered right hand over Jack’s unmoving form. The gunshot wounds covering Jack’s body glowed with cotton candy pink light before the bullets tore violently free from his flesh.

  Warm blood splattered across my face and hands, and as it did, the pain from my dissolving skin receded enough for me to think. Was it because Jack’s vampire blood had healing properties? I wasn’t sure but no matter the cause, my hand had stopped burning, and before I could stop myself, I licked my lips.

  The taste of his blood was like raspberry jam on my tongue, and as that realization hit me, the pain completely vanished. I took a quick glance down at my hand and much to my delight, found it good as new. Man, when this was over I was going to fill a flask with Jack’s blood and carry it around for emergencies or you know, in case I decided to try to leap over a shark tank on a motorcycle to impress the chicks from Happy Days.

  The cat’s skull lay beside my foot, black, viscous fluid spilled across the carpet. I wasn’t sure what had been inside it but judging by the smell of sulfur I was going to go with something demonic. Interesting.

  “I’m not sure what you’re doing, but an explanation would be nice,” I said, wondering why Maya didn’t seem terribly concerned by this weird old guy. She hadn’t moved so much as a muscle since he’d offended her, which now that I thought about it, seemed a bit off.

  “Is that so?” the man asked, standing up. The bullets hovered in the air between us for a moment before falling emptily to the ground. “Why do I owe you anything? You came into my house, did you not?”

  “Look,” I said, gesturing toward the cat’s skull. “There are people after us, and I don’t have time for whatever this is.”

  “Yes, you do.” He smiled, revealing a grin that was all gums. “I stopped time. We have all the time one could want.”

  “What do you mean you stopped time?” I asked, incredulously. I knew Beleth could stop time, but as far as I knew, my own demon had eaten her. If this wasn’t her doing, and I didn’t think it was, who the hell was this guy? Another time-stopping demon? Was that possible?

  “This whole making me repeat myself thing is going to get old really fast. Let’s just cut to what I want, eh?” He moved past me, pausing just long enough to glance at the spilled contents of the cat’s skull. A confused look settled over his features for a split second before vanishing beneath a pensive mask. He shook himself like someone wearing a heavy coat and headed back toward the easy chair in the corner. As he settled into the chair, pink light wrapped around the old guy’s body like a cocoon. The guy’s form seemed to droop, and then another person pulled himself free of the senior who slumped over unconscious and drooling.

  The hitchhiker stood and stretched. He was nearly seven feet tall and gangly as fuck. He wore a crisp pink suit, pink shoes, and a pink top hat. One of his white-gloved hands clutched the head of a jewel encrusted cane, and he leaned heavily on it while flashing me a grin that revealed a set of diamond encrusted golden teeth.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mac Brennan,” he said in a voice that made me think he ought to run for president or be a professional rapper. Given the state of things, he could probably do both. “I am Mammon.”

  “Mammon?” I asked, raising my eyebrow. “Am I supposed to know who you are because, I’ll be honest, I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff.” I tapped my temple with my right index finger. “Fringe benefit.”

  He chuckled, and the sound rolled over me like warm sunshine. It made me want to grab hold of it and keep it for a rainy day. “Of course you don’t remember me. We’ve never met.” He put his hand to his mouth and spoke conspiratorially. “I won’t hold it against you.”

  “Good to know,” I said, surprised that was the case. Most demons I’d met were petty bastards. “So why have you gone to all the trouble to,” I gestured around us. “Whatever this is?”

  “I’m glad you asked, and the answer is quite simple.” He spread his arms wide and the tip of his cane nearly touched my nose as he did it. “I want something.”

  “Okay,” I said, drawing the word out as I spoke. “What do you want?” I left the “and why are you coming to me for it?” part of the question unsaid.

  “See, Asmodai and I are involved in a border dispute. He seems to think Las Vegas is his because it falls under the purview of lust.” He made a disgusted face. “You know hookers and the like. It’s why I keep donating to the local politicians to try to get them to make prostitution illegal. Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked out the way I wanted.”

  I could see this was going to go on a while, so I made a “hurry up” gesture with my hand because the last thing I wanted was to be stuck here talking to Mammon all day. Even if he had stopped time. “Okay, so you want Las Vegas and Asmodai owns it…”

  “Precisely. See, I knew you were smart.” He grinned like a used car salesman. “While I cannot help you directly, I could offer you some assistance with your ‘council of seven’ problem provided you do a couple things for me.” He moved closer to me, put his arm around my shoulder, and pulled me close. “It shouldn’t be a big deal since you were going to do it, anyway.”

  “Is that so?” I asked, wondering what help he could possibly be. Admittedly, demons had been pretty formidable, and having one’s help was usually a good thing, but at the same time their deals tended to suck. Still, he had stopped fucking time. If there was ever a useful power, it’d be that one.

  “Yes, I merely want you to kill the council of seven, and yes, despite what you may have been told they ALL can be killed.” He patted my shoulder. “And, you know, I want their boss dead too. He’s a tricky devil, that one.”

  “You want me to kill Asmodai?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. I mean, okay, I’d planned on doing both of those things, but if dealing with Sargent had taught me anything, it was that Asmodai was going to be hard as fuck to kill, and while my demon had proved to be quite formidable, she was a fucking cat. Asking her to do anything she didn’t want to do would do about as much good as a winter coat in the Sahara.

  “Yes, and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘but Asmodai is one of the seven kings of Hell and the demons I’ve dealt with aren’t on that level’ and you’d be right except for one tiny thing.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden twenty-sided die. “You don’t have this.”

  “I don’t have a twenty sided die?” I asked, shaking him off of me. “What the fuck am I supposed to do to that? Challenge him to a game of D&D?”

  “This is not an ordinary die. For one,” he tossed it on the carpet between us and it came up on twenty, “it always rolls twenties.”

  “Awesome,” I said, scooping to pick up the gilded die. It was heavier than I expected. “Now all I need is a vorpal sword, you know, the weapons from Dungeons and Dragons that slice off the head of your opponent when you roll a twenty and critically hit. Then we’d be in business.”

  “How about a vorpal cane?” he asked, holding his jewel-encrusted pimp staff out to me. “It’ll work pretty similarly, only instead of decapitation, it will turn their skulls into paste, but yeah, same general idea.”

  “Hold up,” I said, examining the die. Each number appeared to glow with preternatural pink light and just holding it made icy spiders crawl up my skin. “Are you being serious?”

  “Yes,” he said, snatching the die from me so quickly I didn’t even see him do it. He held the die up in front of his eye. “Just slot the die into the cane like so,” he pressed the die into the center of the diamond on the top, and as he did, it popped into the diamond, reminding me of the dome with the die inside it on the center of a Trouble game board. “And pop the top.”

  He hit the top, just like in said game, and the die bounced a
round before coming up on twenty. The entire cane glowed with eerie pink light as runes along its length came to life and melted along its surface like the contents of a neon lava lamp.

  “Now it’s ready to smash some skulls like a police officer at a hippie protest.” He offered me the cane. “Try not to lose it, I’ll be wanting it back.”

  “Nice analogy,” I replied, taking the offered cane. I could feel the thrum of energy running through it. I couldn’t quite explain what it was like, but it sort of felt like what I imagined having nuclear launch codes felt like when some douchebag insulted your mother. It made me wonder what else the thing could do. I’d be a fool if I thought smashing skulls was all it did, but I doubted Mammon would tell me. No, I’d have to pay for that information, and at the moment, I wasn’t feeling particularly spendy.

  “And it can be yours for the small price of doing something you were already going to do,” Mammon’s voice poured over me, and I nearly staggered under the force of it. Something wasn’t quite right with the guy, but at the moment, he had a point, and I hated when demons had points. It was way easier to deal with them when they were crazy fucking psychos. I mean, he still probably was, and I was sure I could win without his help, but why not? Why fucking not take my cool ass pimp staff and smash some skulls.

  “And all I have to do is kill the council of seven and Asmodai for a total of eight total kills?” I asked, staring hard at demon. There was a catch, I just didn’t know what it was.

  “Technically, seven kills, since you got one already.” He shrugged. “And I’ll even make it so you don’t have to directly kill them. Them all just being dead works for me.” He held out his hand to me. “What do you say?”

  “If I do this, you’ll take over Vegas,” I replied, staring at his white-gloved hand. Part of me wasn’t sure I was willing to hand over an entire city to the demon, but most of me wasn’t sure it’d actually get much worse since Asmodai owned it already. What’s that saying? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

  “True, but I already own most of it, anyway.” He smiled, and the glare from his teeth was nearly blinding. “Who do you think turned it from what it once was into the family friendly destination designed not just to loot the random gambler but every day wholesome families?” He thrust out his hand a little farther. “But I’ll play nice. Promise.”

  I let out a slow breath. He had a point. Man, I really needed to stop making deals with demons. Every single time I did, it somehow came back to bite me in the ass twice as hard. But hey, I could do that tomorrow. “What if he starts replacing council members?”

  “You’ll have to kill them, unfortunately.” He shrugged. “But again, you would do that anyway.”

  “You make an excellent point. Looks like we have a deal,” I said, taking his hand, and as I did, thunder boomed outside and the smell of lollypops filled my nose. Weird.

  “Glad to hear it,” he replied, and as his words echoed in my ears, he vanished, leaving behind nothing but a pair of singed footprints on the carpet.

  Chapter 10

  I felt the bullet before I heard it. Pain ripped through my right shoulder as I pitched forward in a sort of half-twist and fell sprawled across the cheap carpet. The cane flew from my hand and bounced away as agony shot through me.

  As I tried to figure out what was going on, the old man Mammon had temporarily inhabited started screaming. The crack of another bullet exploded through the room, and the senior’s head exploded into crimson mist that sprayed bloody chunks across the wall behind him. Needless to say, the screaming stopped, and the silence that descended around us brought an unnatural chill with it. Had the old guy been killed just because he was screaming? I couldn’t think of another reason, and something about that made me feel bad because he’d have been fine if I hadn’t landed in this particular room.

  The silence was broken by the sound of boots crunching on gravel. My shoulder shrieked in pain as I tried to twist to see who was there, but Sargent’s booming voice froze me in my tracks.

  “I wouldn’t go moving if I were you, Mac,” Sargent said, and my spidey sense started going berserk in my head. “If you do, I might feel like I have to shoot you again. I don’t normally miss, so the first one is what I like to call a freebie.” The pain in my shoulder receded a touch as rage surged up inside me, blocking it out. I wasn’t sure how this fucker had gotten to me already, but he was seriously pissing me off, and now he’d gone and killed an innocent guy.

  “You should just walk away now,” I growled, and as the words left my mouth, light spilled from my tattoos causing crimson shadows to dance across the room.

  “You need to cut that out right now. While you might be all kinds of bulletproof, I’m betting your friends aren’t,” Sargent said in a voice that chilled me to my core. While I wasn’t sure what state Jack was in, Maya most certainly wasn’t bulletproof. Fuck.

  “Mac, just get him, I’ll be okay—” Maya’s voice was cut off by the crack of a bullet. She cried out in pain as the sound of her body hitting the ground filled my ears.

  “Now, that’s enough of that.” Sargent stepped into view with a Colt in each meaty fist. One was pointed at my face while the other was pointed to my left, presumably at Maya. It was too bad Jack seemed to be down for the count, otherwise we’d have a chance at rushing him. Not much of one, mind you, but a chance.

  “I can’t believe you fucking shot me. Asshole,” Maya snapped, and out of my peripheral vision, I saw her gripping her shoulder. “Why does everyone shoot me in the same fucking shoulder? Do you know how much this is going to cost to heal?”

  “Your dad told me you were right-handed. Send him the bill. He’ll get a kick out of it.” A grin spread across Sargent’s face as he glanced from her to me. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s not dead because her daddy asked me to spare her.” He knelt down in front of her. “I’m pretty good at shooting people and not killing them too. Trust me, my threat is still a good one. Besides, if I get real pissed off, I might forget I care about what her daddy might want. That’d be a shame, for sure.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, through gritted teeth. My shoulder still hurt like crazy, but at least at the moment, he wasn’t shooting me. If I stalled long enough, maybe Jack would get up and beat the fuck out of him.

  “See, I’m glad we could be reasonable.” Sargent stood, and as he did so, he gestured for me to rise. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You and I are going to walk out of here all nice and quiet like. Do that, and I’ll let them live. Deal?”

  “Fuck you,” I said, trying to get to my feet. As I did, he kicked me in the shoulder and a solar flare of pain exploded behind my temples. I crashed to the ground, barely biting back a scream as my left hand gripped my bleeding shoulder.

  “Now, Mac, while I don’t mind hurting you. It is terribly time consuming.” He pressed the toe of his cowboy boot into my wounded shoulder and ground down. My vision went spotty with pain, and this time I couldn’t bite down my cry of agony. “I don’t really like hunting people down. Again, time consuming. I’ve got me a nice place back home. I want to get back to it.”

  “So why don’t you just kill me and be done with it?” I asked before he kicked me roughly in the side. I felt my ribs give way with a startling crack. I tried to suck in a breath but found I couldn’t as another fresh bout of pain wracked my body.

  “Boss changed his mind after you killed Rachel.” Sargent shrugged. “Wants you alive. That’s bad for you.” He pointed the gun at Maya. “Now while I may like her Daddy, I like being alive way more. Get up, put your hands on the back of your head, and stand there like a fucking statue, or the next round goes in her face. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” I said and started to get up. It hurt more than it should have. As soon as I’d complied, he smiled at me, and I got the feeling holding people at gunpoint wasn’t an abnormal occurrence for him. No, Sargent struck me as the type who was used to getting what he wanted.

  “Now, was that so bad?” he a
sked right before Mammon’s pimp cane smacked him upside the head. While it didn’t obliterate his skull, which probably had to do with it not glowing, he flew sideways, his Stetson falling off his head and landing on the carpet as he smashed into the television, knocking it off the cheap black stand and onto the ground. He crashed into the drywall as Jack stepped past me, brandishing Mammon’s cane and picked up the hat. I’ll be honest, I’d never been more excited to see a vampire before.

  “Move!” he hissed while putting the Stetson on his head. I wasted no time moving after the vampire. Maya was already falling in behind us, but as we stepped through the door, a nunchuck came flying at Jack’s skull. He blocked with the pimp cane and shoved the martial artist backward.

  Bruce wobbled as Maya and I stepped through the opening into the shrapnel hewn street. You know, I’ve heard the expression “it looked like a bomb went off” but in reality, that expression didn’t quite do the street justice. The buildings were torn apart, light poles snapped off like broken, charred twigs. Overturned, burning cars littered the street.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” I asked as Maya deftly pulled another black candle out of her purse and lit it while using only one arm. Black smoke spread out like fog from the candle, and as it did, it began to solidify around her.

  Maya pointed one finger at Bruce Lee. “I’ll finish this fucker off while you two get Duane. Go! Now!”

  I wasn’t sure if her final words were directed at us or at Bruce because as they left her mouth the shadows exploded toward the ninja assassin. The tentacles hit him like a punch in the face, sending him sprawling across the debris strewn pavement and holding him down in a seething mass of darkness.

  “Maya, you can’t hold them both off,” I said as a bullet tore through the wall beside my head and zinged by my ear.

  “Jack can fly, but he can’t carry us both, and right now, that’s the only way out of here,” she said, whipping out her hand and filling the doorway with a wall of darkness. “Someone has to stay behind. Besides, Pops and I have some unfinished business to settle.”